Long Night
by aoiteto
Summary: First, maybe I should start with how weird it is writing a letter addressed to Bruce Wayne, and truthfully, not that it wouldn't be equally weird, writing a letter to Batman would have been a lot easier.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or any relations and associates._

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_**Long Night**_

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He picked up the pen.

Heavy thoughts – overflowing, powerful, and confusing. They ran through his mind, trying to escape. He pressed the tip of the pen onto the blue lined paper. It's edges were curled from agitated fingers and the sweat that clung to them.

He began writing.

Then he stopped.

He put down the pen once more and read over the one word that had made it onto the page.

Didn't look right. Just didn't.

He crumpled the paper with both hands until it was a tight ball and aimed it into the waste basket nearby. It missed, again, rolling to a stop among the other paper balls.

A new blank sheet stared up at him. He hesitated with pen in hand. He was running out of paper.

Now or never then.

The flood gates opened as he wrote and wrote and wrote till there was nothing left.

_Dear Bruce:_

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It had been a long night.

There was fighting and yelling that only grew louder and more frustrating until Bruce's anger gave in to the silence – cold and dismissing of the young boy – no, he was a young man now, but always their doting child at heart – who ended the night with slammed doors and a tension that left waking souls chilled to the bone. The New Year's feast sat cold and untouched on the dining table.

Now, Batman was out patrolling during the storm that had earlier diminished into gentle snowfall – despite his promise to the boys and Alfred – after retreated to the darkness of the batcave following the clashbetween him and Dick who – kept his promise to come home for the New Year – had locked himself in his bedroom.

Both boys without dinner, much to Alfred's dismay.

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_Where do I even __**start**__?_

_Do I start by saying Happy New Years? That would be something normal to say right? Thought we both know that truthfully it wasn't very happy at all. Since we ended up fighting – again – like we always do. No, wait, not like we __**always**__ do. We never fought this much back then. _

_Truthfully Bruce, I don't know __**how**__ to start, and the question shouldn't be where do I even start but where __**can**__ I start?_

_There's so many thing we haven't even touched home base with yet and both being pigheaded and stubborn, saying the wrong things can easily turn the conversation from simple to complicate. Like tonight. But there's so much I want to say and so little opportunities to get it out._

_So I'll write you another letter._

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The untouched plates had been packed neatly into the fridge with the rest of the leftovers, in case any of them were to feel peckish during the night.

Alfred's sharp eyes gave the kitchen a good once-over before reluctantly decided it was time to head to bed. A good night's rest was due and deserved after the events of what should have been a heartfelt family dinner.

Up the great winding staircase, Alfred found himself mesmerized by the chandelier that hung from the ceiling. His mind was immersed in the memory of an eight year old Dick Grayson. The boy was always so full of happiness and laughter, turning the depressing house into a home constantly emitting life.

He remembered all those times he nearly had a heart attack when he found the small child, the laughing daredevil, swinging from the twinkling death trap, as Alfred had once put it.

And how many times had that boy just let go, falling with a smile on his face, always confident that Bruce would catch him.

He would be laughing and talking endlessly in Bruce's arms, telling him all the great things and small things he had stumble upon that day with a child's smile, reassuring and happy. And Bruce's lips would twitch with the smallest of smiles.

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_I guess we've been giving each other the cold shoulder for a while. A __**while**__. A bit of an understatement, don't you say Bruce?_

_First, maybe I should start with how __**weird**__ it is writing a letter addressed to Bruce Wayne, and truthfully, not that it wouldn't be equally weird, writing a letter to Batman would have been a lot easier. _

_As Batman and Robin we were vengeance, justice, and mercy. We were everything they made us to be. Then we had our falling out and I left, not because I wanted to, because I felt I __**had**__ to. Because when you fired me as Robin, I felt like you were kicking me out of your life. And that was always what I feared the worst. Losing someone else._

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When did those days end? When Dick grew up and was ready to face to world on his own, when Bruce just didn't know how to let go, when Alfred woke up one day to find the house as cold and distant as it was before their little boy came into their lives.

Light still fell from the cracks of Tim's room, filtering out the gap beneath the closed door. On a normal occasion, Alfred would have demanded the boy turn off the lights and get to bed. But tonight it just seemed he was too tiredfor anymore conflict.

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_I hated being your ward. I __**hate**__ that word. Not that I hated __**being**__ with you Bruce, not at all. I hated knowing that being a __**ward**__ only had meaning until I became eighteen, then what was I to you Bruce? Batman was Robins mentor and Robin was Batman's partner – not his sidekick, I hate that word too – his soldier, his trainee, his protégé. But who was Dick to Bruce. If I wasn't your ward anymore who was I? Your son? Or was Roy right? That I was just some charity case._

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He continued his solemn journey down the empty corridor before he stopped. It wouldn't hurt to check, see for himself that the young man was alright and had settled down fine after tonight's ordeal.

Alfred took the stairs that led to the third floor with a new resolve in mind. Through a new maze of hallways that he could navigate with his eyes closed, and arrived at the bedroom door three down from the master suite.

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_Was that what scared you away Bruce? That I was growing up? No, I __**know**__ that scared you. That I might not need you anymore some day and that you would lose me just like I was scared of losing you, losing any meaning to you. But that wasn't what happened. Somehow, we drifted apart by becoming __**closer**__._

_Only we would, huh, Bruce._

_A little inside joke but in all serious it's the truth._

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He gently knocked in case the boy inside was asleep. When no answer came, Alfred silently turned the handle and gazed into the dark room. His eyes easily found its way to the bed where a slumbering figure was noticeable from under the nest of blankets and pillows the boy had made for himself.

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_When I was a little boy, you made a promise to me: that you would never replace my parents. Because you knew you could never fill their shoes, and at that time all I wanted was the same. _

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He quickly skimmed the room, finding the desk where wads of paper lay near the empty waste basket. With a soft sigh, he moved to the desk, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep knowing there was disorder in the house, a mess that seemed to follow Dick wherever he went.

The boy had a bad habit of leaving thing where they weren't meant to be without much thought when he found something else to amuse him with.

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_But now, I've come to terms with what happened to them. But somehow I haven't come to terms with you, because you kept that promise, all these years, to that broken boy who reminded you of yourself. And I guess we really are alike. No matter how I'm in denial about it. Barbara was right – don't tell her though, okay? Our personalities, our way of means, our beliefs and even our pasts, how we became who we are today. _

_But there __**was**__ a different Bruce. One big one._

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For Alfred, whenever he saw the young man Richard John Grayson had become, all he could see was the little boy who had given Bruce his smile back along with his heart, the little boy coming home with scraps and scrapes and covered with dirt but with the brightest smile on his face that warmed any old heart, and the little boy who hung from chandeliers.

He skillfully gathered the crumpled scraps off the floor and into the waste basket. Once more, Alfred's careful eye skimmed over every crevice of the room while returning the scrap bin to its original place. Clothes littered the floors and hung off chairs while some drawers were left open and strange new souvenirs from Dick's home in Bludhaven were littered on the few available surfaces. Old frames with familiar photographs sat next to the bed on bedside tables.

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_And that's you. You and everyone I met after you brought me into your life, into your deep dark secret life. As a vigilante – as Nightwing, I had been trying to branch out from you. I was on my own so it was only fitting that I should start a new life, independent. But you've seen my costume and __**Nightwing**__ wasn't someone new or someone original. _

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All this was familiar to Alfred. Dick's room had always been a complete mess, but it was an organized disaster and somehow the older man always decided to leave it as it was. Whenever Dick's was home the entire manor seemed to look like this – like someone lived in it.

But that wasn't what caught Alfred's eye.

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_Bruce – you would give up Batman, everything, all of us, if you could change what had happened, you would drop everything at hand in a heartbeat to bring your parents back. But, I've never told __**anyone**__ this, but the truth is Bruce – I don't think I would. _

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On the desk before him was a terribly sealed envelope admits Dick's knick knacks. And on the front there was a name scribbled hastily in the boy's familiar writing: _Dad._

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_Because that would mean trading in my friends, every single person who made the Dick Grayson of today, who supports me and loves me and just makes me...well...me._

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And Alfred really shouldn't have, knowing it was an invasion of privacy.

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_And you Bruce._

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But he read it anyways.

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_You and Alfred and Timmy and Babs and Cassie and Steph and...just EVERYONE Bruce. Even Jason._

_And I don't think I would be able to give all that up, give all you up, and give up everything that is – me. There would be no Nightwing without any of you._

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He read it once then twice and it wasn't till the third time did he silently close his eyes.

And he thought.

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_And I don't think you're ready to know this yet, to know __**any**__ of this yet so that's why I won't send this letter. Just like all my other letters and presents I was never able to give you. All the gifts with the tag addressed to 'dad'. _

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Folding the letter, Alfred came to a decision. He left the room for a brief second before coming back with new lined paper. He folded it in half, just as the original was, and slipped it into the envelope before sealing it shut sloppily, just as Dick had done.

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_I can't even imagine what your face would look like if you heard me say that. So I'm going to step it up a notch while I'm at it, since you probably won't ever read this._

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Then he left the room, wished the boy a silent good night, and closed the door.

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_I love you, too._

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There was something he had to do.

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_And I miss you too._

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It was nearly sunrise when Bruce emerged from the batcave.

He was tired and sore and aching, feeling unsatisfied and irrational.

And the small pressed envelope that he found sitting innocently on his desk looked completely out of place where it was.

He wanted to ignore it, just forget about it and deal with it in the morning, but his natural paranoia took over and he found himself unsealing the envelope.

Inside he found a letter.

That was addressed to him.

And so naturally he began skimming it over.

And found himself stuck.

His eyes returned back to the top of the page and this time he read it.

First once.

Then twice.

And a few more times till he just couldn't read it again.

He leaned back in his seat, eyes closed and kneading his forehead with a thumb, trying to assess his emotions.

Until he finally understood.

Overwhelmed, warm, happy, _love_.

Keeping the letter tucked away in one of the pockets in his pants, the letter he was never meant to see, Bruce turned off the lights and up the flights of stairs.

And through hallway after hallway.

To his old room from his childhood, the one he had before he finally felt the courage to move into the master suite. It was a room he still often visited, even when no one was there to occupy it.

He wondered briefly if Dick still kept the lights on when he slept.

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_So happy thanksgiving, happy holidays, happy New Year, happy birthday and all the other happys that I was unable to tell you this year._

_And probably next year._

_And it doesn't really matter what sort of celebration or festival that it is. Because you deserve it all Bruce. You deserve all the happiness. And that's all I ever wanted for you. To find happiness in whatever you're doing, whatever it is you choose to do, no matter what anyone says or thinks. No matter what I think._

_Just be happy._

_Love, Dick._

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And Bruce was.

Because his son was finally home.

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_**A/N : This is the story to the letter I uploaded months ago - "Letter to Bruce". **__**I tried changing up the writing style for Alfred, Dick, and Bruce. Alfred's POV is nothing like my normal writing style but I wanted a "Once upon a time" sophisticated kind of thing going. I liked the challenge but my brain is kinda fried now. With Bruce you can tell I pretty much gave up on the long descriptions and full paragraphs. Dick was the most fun to write. He was also the easiest. That's why his letter came out first.**_ Still I feel pretty satisfied.  


_**Thank you for all your reviews for "Letter to Bruce" and for taking the time time to read this story as well as the letter. I'm afraid to say I don't think this story will do justice to what everyone had hoped for but again enjoy!  
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_**I don't know why I wrote so much.  
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_**Here's the link to Dick's real letter from the comics that inspired all this madness (replace the spaces with -dot-):  
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_** thebatfamily wordpress com/2009/04/29/dicks-letter-to-bruce/2009/04/29/dicks-letter-to-bruce/**_

_**All rights go to their respective owners (DC, Warner Bros, etc.)  
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